Clive & Melanie Morris - Narrowboat Folkies

Sorry for the recent hiatus, there have been several days where we have had a very poor dongle signal and also we have been a bit preoccupied with one thing and another. However since the last blog we have been there and back again, so to  speak!  We left our mooring with the beautiful views on Tuesday, November 17th and cruised up to Whaley Bridge.  There is a junction just before Whaley Bridge itself that turns into the Bugsworth Basin, however we continued on past this ...

Tuesday November 10th – Adlington to Wood Lanes

Dave duly arrived as arranged and it really didn’t take him very long to replace the broken cratchboard and window with the new one and now Lady Arwen looks all smart again and we can see through the front window! Dave had brought his wife Lynda with him but whilst he was working on the cratch she took the dog for a long walk up the towpath.  When she got back I invited her in for a cuppa and also offered...

Sunday November 8th – somewhere near Bollington to Wood Lanes!

Once we were up and breakfasted Clive started the engine, untied the boatand we headed back to Wood Lanes.  The main reason for this was that our current mooring had a crap dongle signal and an even worse TV signal!  We made it in about an hour, turned around and moored up facing back towards Macclesfield ready for the morning. 

During the aftern...

Thursday Nov 5th – Wood Lanes

The hire car people duly arrived and whisked Clive offt o Macclesfield as planned, whilst I finished off doing the blog!  I was only just ready when he arrived back and as he had parked on the Private Road next to the canal which distinctly said, in extremely large letters on the road, NO PARKING I had to be quick! However he didn’t really have a choice so we just had to grab all the bags and the guitar, lock up and make a dash...

Sunday November 1st – Macclesfield

Can you believe it is actually November –already!  Where did the year go for goodness sake!!!  However November started off with a rainbow – is that a good omen do you think?

Nov...

Thursday November 29th – Oakgrove to Macclesfield

We are in no rush to get anywhere now so the order of the day is get up when we feel like it, potter about a bit, watch a bit of TV, check the emails etc then set off when we are ready!  What a life!

Right in front of our moorings at Oakgrove is an electrically operated swing bridge.  We have bad memories of this bridge!

Last year when Vicki, Gareth and Indy came to visi...

Friday Oct 23rd – Hem Heath to Kidsgrove

We got up early as planned, had a quick breakfast then we were off!  It was pretty uneventful cruising through Stoke on Trent and we were pleased to see that the canal was much cleaner than when we passed this way last year, then it was full of all sorts of rubbish and not very pleasant! 

Once through Stoke on Trent it wasn’t long before we arrived at the Harecastle Tunnel.  We had to moo...

Wednesday Oct 21st – Shirleywich to Stone

Our friend Shirley thought it very weird that we were in a place called Shirleywich – especially it being so close to Halloween!  I have to say, she did cross my mind when I saw the name on the map!  Actually the wich in the name is not referring to the spooky, warty sort that ride brooms and wear pointy hats!  Any town with “wich” in its name almost certainly has something to do with salt!...

Saturday October 17th – Hopwas to FradleyJunction

We left Hopwas as planned on Saturday morning, fortunately the weather was clement!  It was a very uneventful cruise and it wasn’t long before we were on the approacht o Fradley Junction.  There is a little swing footbridge immediately before the junction so I hopped off the boat and went and opened it, Clive brought the boat through and after shutting the bridge I hopped back on board.  At the jun...

Thursday Oct 15th – Atherstone

It was a horrible, drizzly, damp morning when we woke up – yeuch!  Oh well – we donned our waterproofs and went out to face the day. Just beyond our overnight mooring was the first of the locks in the Atherstone flight, however we needed water and there was a water point on the left bank before the lock so we pulled in there first.  It wasn’t long before we had the hose connected and started filling the t...